1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a routing structure for an engine room harness that is arranged inside an engine room and supplies battery voltage to various electrical components installed inside the engine room.
2. Background Information
An engine room harness of a vehicle comprises a plurality of harness wires bundled into a harness trunk line. The harness trunk line has one end connected to a battery of the vehicle, and the other end connected to various electrical components installed inside the engine room of the vehicle. The battery of a vehicle is installed on one side inside the engine room. Thus, the harness truck line is typically routed from one lateral side of the engine room where the battery is installed to the other lateral side of the engine room. Typically, the harness truck line extends in the vehicle widthwise direction along the upper part of the lower dash panel. (See page PI-136 of the repair manual for the Toyota Opa, issued in May 2000.)
There exists a need for an improved engine room harness routing structure that allows a harness trunk line to be routed without imposing restrictions on the design of the vehicle body. This invention addresses this need in the art as well as other needs, which will become apparent to those skilled in the art from this disclosure.
It has been discovered that the back part of the brake master cylinder, the air conditioner piping, and other engine room components are typically mounted to the lower dash panel. Consequently, when the harness trunk line is routed in the vehicle widthwise direction along the upper part of the lower dash panel, the harness trunk line is fastened with a plurality of harness clips or the like to the lower dash panel between the engine room components and the cowl box thereabove. However, since the harness trunk line has a relatively large outer diameter (30 to 40 mm), it is necessary to provide a relatively large harness mounting space between the engine room components and the cowl box.
Therefore, when one attempts to provide the necessary closed cross sectional height for the cowl box in view of vehicle rigidity and installing the wiper unit, the height of the cowl box relative to the ground increases and the position of the bottom edge of the front windshield becomes higher. The degree of design freedom for the vehicle body is effected, and ultimately the layout cannot be completed unless there is a lot of leeway in the total vehicle height, such as in the case of a minivan.
Meanwhile, it is also feasible to route the harness trunk line through the inside of the cross section of the upper rail of the radiator core at the front of the engine room instead of routing it along the lower dash panel at the rear of the engine room. However, this arrangement would cause the cross sectional height of the upper rail of the radiator core to increase, which in turn would cause the tip of the engine hood to be higher with respect to the ground. Thus, routing the harness trunk line through the upper rail of the radiator core would greatly affect the design of the front end of the vehicle. Such an arrangement would also result in a cost disadvantage in cases where the front end of the vehicle is modularized because the harness would have to be divided.
In view of these issues, one object of the present invention is to provide an engine room harness routing structure that allows the harness trunk line to be routed without causing restrictions on the vehicle body design.
The foregoing object can basically be attained by providing an engine room harness routing structure for a vehicle. The engine room harness routing structure comprises a cowl box and a harness trunk line. The cowl box is configured to extend in a widthwise direction of the vehicle. The harness trunk line is partially housed within an upper region of the cowl box to extend in the widthwise direction of the vehicle inside the cowl box. The harness trunk line is configured to be electrically coupled to a battery to supply battery voltage to at least one electrical component installed inside an engine room of the vehicle.
These and other objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which, taken in conjunction with the annexed drawings, discloses a preferred embodiment of the present invention.